I Can't Go Back to Yesterday
by BroughtBack
Summary: Marion Louise Dahl is visited from her old friend Jervis Tech one day and they reminisce and talk about life past and future and the hope that they aren't allowed to have. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN VERSE/ Rated for mild swearing and homosexuality. REVIEW PLEASE


**A/N: It should be noted that this story takes place in the Christopher Nolan Universe and that I am using the Batman Animated Series characters of Baby Doll and Mad Hatter. It should also be noted that I have taken liberties with her for the sake of this story. I have also made references to Pamela Isley, before her transformation into Poison Ivy, Kate Kane, before she became Batwoman, and Killer Croc, who I have places before the Christopher Nolan series. **

**This story takes place around right after the second movie, and Jervis and Marion are the lesser nuisances of Gotham, which is why they were never mentioned in the news.**

The scream shook the crumbling walls of the subterranean parking garage, the sound never reaching the surface of Gotham City. Even if it did, it was doubtful that anyone would hear it or respond. Shiny black Mary-Jane shoes clicked across the floor, a blonde wig riddled with thick curls being thrown onto the lop-sided couch as the girl that had worn it flopped unceremoniously and in an unlady-like fashion onto the other end. She hadn't anticipated the security of Wayne Enterprises' development labs to be so high and now she'd have to go to a less-prestigious source to get what she needed.

There was a whimper from a cage near the back of the garage and Marion scowled. "Shut the fuck up, you bitch!" She called and the woman cowering in the dog-cage was silenced, staring from where she was being contained at the girlish figure. She had been in the cage for two months and just recently the search for her had stopped, which was the only reason Marion had risked trying to get supplies for the lab that she would be building for her. "You make another sound for the rest of the night and I won't even give you sewer water for the next week." The scientist's eyes widened and she shrank slightly, shifting on her knees and watching her captor warily. "Good girl."

Marion Louise Dahl was about four feet tall with short, messily cropped brown hair. Short, dainty fingers carefully removed blue tinted contacts, which were put in a case that was produced from one of the numerous pockets hidden in the folds of her knee-length petticoat dress. Brown eyes dark as night blinked and full lips thinned into a tight frown as the girl began to undo her dress' buttons and lacings. Beneath the worn black fabric was a spandex body-suit riddled with thick leather belts that contained various pieces of ammunition and replacement weaponry, the will-o-wisp thin frame beneath somehow able to withstand the numerous pounds of metal.

"Sounds like someone got into some trouble she couldn't handle." Within an instant there were several clicks and Marion had turned, a small semi-automatic pointed at the face of the man that had invaded her space. "Hello, Mary."

"Jervis, I could have blown your head off, you know!" Marion waved the gun in the man's face, scowling as she whacked him upside the head with the gun, not enough to knock him out, but enough to make him stumble. "You're such a child!"

"Is that a Jericho 941 F with 9 millimeter casings?"

"Ktch." Marion rolled her eyes. "More like a Smith & Wesson Sigma 9 millimeter." She clicked the safety onto the gun and shoved it into its holster at her hip and thigh area. "What are you doing here, Jervis?"

"Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

"You're an insane ass, Jervis, speak normally."

"You're no fun, Mary, even if you are Baby Doll."

"Ugh, I finally get you to stop calling me Alice and you just turn around and make my name sound ridiculous, Mad Hatter." Marion flopped onto the couch, lifting her wig and tossing it to the side. "So, what's the occasion? We haven't seen each other socially in what? Five years?"

"You haven't changed a bit in those years, still look twelve years old."

"Yeah, no thanks to you or Crane or anyone who said they could cure me." Marion snorted, resting her elbow on the back of the couch. "Though the women I meet all want to know my secret."

"Ah, there's another woman now?" Jervis flopped onto the couch, his legs dangling over the arm opposite Marion and his head resting on the cushion next to her hip. "Whatever happened to the redhead biologist?"

"Pam got bored trying to pick apart my genes to isolate the disease. She never was one for that sort of thing, she enjoyed plants more. I honestly haven't talked to her in three years."

"Hmm… So there's someone new?"

"On and off, yeah, a chick by the name of Kate." Marion smirked. "Redhead."

"Let it never be said you don't have a type." Jervis sighed, shaking his head.

"What about you? Anything new?"

"Nah, I'm the same old same old." Jervis sat upright. "Though I do have a question."

"Hm, does it have an actual answer?"

"Yes." Jervis grinned, recalling the numerous pointless questions he used to ask his "Alice" back when they had their brief stint working together. It was a good time, strange, but good, where he had planned their crimes and Marion had been content to act as his gun moll. But then she had grown bored and had wanted to be cured of her still-nameless anti-aging disease. She had associated with Killer Croc before him, but he hadn't heard nor seen the enormous man in years. "What happened to Morgan? I haven't seen hide nor hair of him and was wondering if he… You know…"

"Was cured." Baby Doll's face twisted into a scowl. "The scaly infidel was cured, now he's living out his sentence in Arkham." The brunette grinned down at Jervis. "Guess who his main psyche doctor was?"

"Who?"

"None other than Jonathan Crane."

"Oh lord, Scarecrow?" Jervis grinned. "Fear Night must have been one enormous step back."

"You know it!" Marion laughed, smiling down at her friend. There was a long pause before she spoke. "You know I miss you sometimes, Jervis, we had some fun times."

"But you could never keep going as a simple moll."

"All too true." The woman in a girl's body sighed, running her hand through the older man's hair. "Thirty years and I'm still not making it anywhere… If I'm cured… I could change my name and move out of Gotham, go to California, live out my days on television."

"But could you leave all this behind?" Jervis asked with a frown. "That's the thing with most of us… We can't just drop it and kick it to the curb."

"I don't know, Jervis…" Marion sighed, pressing her cheek to the back of the couch. "But to me… It's worth a try."

Jervis nodded, watching Marion as she continued to gently run her fingers through his hair. She was so childish in her ideals of simply walking away from the life of crime she had known for years, years before the Batman had come to the streets of Gotham. She was one of the oldest of the old in their line of work, yet somehow she had managed to keep hold of the hope of a cure.

"You gonna take Kate with you when you go? Does she even know who you are?"

Marion sighed and shook her head. "How could I tell her? How could I tell anyone?"

And that was the crux of it, the center of why not a single one of the villains could do what Baby Doll had and be close to others outside of themselves.

How could they be given a real life, after all they had done?


End file.
